Bordeaux 2011: Tasting in 2012
Only a few weeks on from the primeur tastings, the annual Grand Cru Classé Tasting in London, featuring the wines of a small and select number of Bordeaux châteaux, afforded me another opportunity to taste some of the barrel samples from the region’s newest vintage. I travelled down to London for the tasting, and report on the wines here. In other reports (linked below) I will focus on the other vintages shown at the tasting, these being 2010, 2009 and 2008.
We all like a soundbite, vignerons, merchants and consumers alike, but this trait is most keenly expressed by the second member of this trio I think, and usually the soundbite carries a very positive message. The now-hackneyed Vintage of the Century has been the most commonly heard in recent years, an expression that – despite the fact you or I might think this moniker should be applied every hundred years or so – is seemingly ready for use every three or four. Less exalted years are dressed up with A Winemaker’s Vintage and similar. Sadly for the more poetic of the Bordeaux merchants, however, the complexity of the 2011 vintage didn’t mesh very well with the soundbite concept, and I’m not surprised that one hasn’t really come to the fore.
Until now, that is. I learnt of one such soundbite recently, apparently coined by Jean-René Matignon, technical director of Pichon-Baron. He came up with The Harlequin Vintage, based on two parallel premises. Firstly, with his technical hat on, when inspecting the fruit prior to harvest he found quality and ripening to be very varied within each bunch. Alongside the ripe grapes there were pink grapes, burnt and damaged by the June heat wave, berries reticently green and unripe, and also areas of rot. He found this cruel variety within each individual bunch reminded him of the patchwork of multicoloured diamonds that make up the iconic outfit of a Harlequin, the classical comic court jester.
